Monday, December 31, 2007

Get the book that shows you not only what to study, but how to study. The only classroom-based integrated study system for professional certification gives you complete coverage of all objectives for the Sun Certified Programmer for Java 5 exam, hundreds of practice exam questions, and hands-on exercises. The CD-ROM features full practice exam software plus an adaptive test engine. buy now

A programmers Guide to Java™ Certification, Second Edition, contains detailed coverage of all exam topics and objectives, helpful code examples, exercises, review questions, and several full practice exams. In addition, as a comprehensive primer to the Java programming language, this book is an invaluable reference tool for the reader.

This new edition has been thoroughly updated to focus on the latest version of the exam (CX-310-035). In particular, it contains more in-depth explanations of the syntax and usage of core language features that are now emphasized on the exam. The accompanying CD contains a version of the SCPJ2 1.4 Exam Simulator developed by Whizlabs software, which includes several mock exams and simulates the exam-taking experience. The CD also contains the complete source code for all the examples, and solutions to the programming exercises. buy now

Sunday, December 30, 2007

There is few minor changes from the previous version 5.0. Objectives are very similar to SCJP 5.0 exam except that few minor updates. In the following section bolded topics are updated in SCJP 6.0.SCJP 1.6 - NavigableSetSCJP 1.6 - NavigableMap

We have prepared 350+ mock questions for SCJP 1.6 exam. The questions from thiskit is spread over all the objectives. In additional we have prepared questions for the SCJP 1.6 topics NavigableSet, NavigableMap,Concole,GarbageCollection and Finalize method. These are the topics newly added to the SCJP 1.6 exam. You can buy this questions for JUST Rs.250 from the following link:

Monday, December 17, 2007

We have created 300+ Mock questions for SCJP 1.5. The questions in the eBook is more focused on the SCJP 1.5 specific topics. For example, we have added 53 questions for generics topic. It will help user to get good knowledge on the subject. You can buy the kit for JUST Rs.200 from the following link:SCJP 1.5 Mock Exams Questions

The Times has reignited the debate around the eventual successor to Steve Jobs, suggesting that it might be the company's UK-born design chief, Jonathan Ive.

In an article drawing purely on speculation the newspaper suggests that Ive is the best candidate to succeed Jobs, Apple's co-founder and chief executive. In Ive's favour, a design portfolio that includes four generations of the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone. And he is not a dull American businessman, unlike current Apple number two, Tom Cook. read more

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

This article discusses theories and concepts related to JSF Event Model. It details the supporting high level classes and interfaces that are involved in JSF Event Handling Mechanism. The logical categorization of JSF Events is also explained along with code snippets. Then, the tags available in the core JSF Framework are also discussed.

In this technical article, let us see how it is possible to access Web Services from JSF Applications. JSF Application resides in the Web Tier of a typical Enterprise Application, whereas Web Services are External Services that reside in the Application Tier. We make use of Java EE 5 for developing the Sample Application in the final section of this article. It is assumed that readers have sufficient knowledge of JSF and Web Services before continuing this article.

Monday, September 24, 2007

UDDI is one of the core Web Service standard. It provides access to Web Service Description Language which provides binding information and message formats required to interact with the web services listed in its directory. Enterprises that seek to optimize software or service reuse subscribe to some form of service-oriented architecture (SOA), server programs or database software licensed by some of the professed founders of the UDDI.org and OASIS.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

This article will introduce you with Spring IDE 2.0. Spring IDE 2.0 is a plugin for developing Spring Applications with ease in Eclipse IDE. This article will walk you through the various steps involved in installing Spring IDE 2.0 in Eclipse. This article also describes common tasks done in Spring Framework way using Spring IDE 2.0 plugin.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Welcome to the future of Internet-based application development and deployment. This article will give us an idea about Universal, Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI). What is it ? Why it is an important in the future of Web services standards ? This article explains that UDDI is focused on sharing business information, making it easier for you to publish your preferred means of conducting business, find trading partners and have them find you, and interoperate with these trading partners over the Internet. This artical assumes that you already have knowledge about little bit of HTTP, SOAP, and Web Services.

The feature of Generics in Java allows Applications to create classes and objects that can operate on any defined types. Programmers can now make use of the Generics feature for a much better code. There is no need for un-necessary casting when dealing with Objects in a Collection. This article provides a detailed overview of Generics and its usage in different context with samples. To start with, it illustrates the need for Generics and the difficulties faced by the Developers before its origin. It will explain in detail on how to write Generic Classes, Generic Methods and so on. Then the various aspects of Bound Constraints and Wild-cards will be discussed.

Java 5.0 comes with a bunch of useful features. In this article, we are going to have an overview of the features like Enhanced for-loop, Variable Arguments, Static Imports and Enumerations. The sections in this article are,

In the latest version of J2SE 5.0 released by Sun, Autoboxing is one of the new feature. Before J2SE 5.0, working with primitive types required the repetitive work of converting the primitive types into wrapper classes and vice - versa. Sometimes the purpose of conversion is just for some API call, after which the results have to be converted into original form which is very frustrating .Auto-boxing and Auto-Unboxing enables the primitive types to be converted into respective wrapper objects and the other way around.This article gives some insight about the importance of this new feature and how it can be used in the real-world programming.

Annotations in Java is all about adding meta-data facility to the Java Elements. Like Classes, Interfaces or Enums, Annotations define a type in Java and they can be applied to several Java Elements. Tools which will read and interpret the Annotations will implement a lot of functionalities from the meta-information obtained. For example, they can ensure the consistency between classes, can check the validity of the paramters passed by the clients at run-time and can generate lot of base code for a project. This article provides you a complete guide detailing the various aspects of Annotations. The topics covered in this article are as follows,

Google Guice is a Dependency Injection Framework that can be used by Applications where Relation-ship/Dependency between Business Objects have to be maintained manually in the Application code. Since Guice support Java 5.0, it takes the benefit of Generics and Annotations thereby making the code type-safe.

Normally an Ajax application is built by creating XHTML pages and JavaScript code with a suitable integrated development environment (IDE). A number of different libraries and frameworks exist by which programmers can use pre-designed JavaScript classes to implement otherwise time-consuming dynamic behaviors,

J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) is an advanced technology in Java, developed with the help of Java Community Process Program. J2ME is a reduced version of the Java API and Java Virtual Machine that is designed to operate within the limited resources available in the embedded computers and microcomputers.Introduction to J2ME

Sunday, July 29, 2007

PC maker Dell has announced its collaboration with Canonical Inc. Both companies together will soon offer more desktops and notebooks incorporating the Linux operating system instead of Windows.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Canonical Inc said, “What’s been announced to date is not the full extent of what we will see over the next couple of weeks and months. There are additional offerings in the pipeline.”

Gerry Carr, Marketing Manager at Canonical said, “This is the next great battle and this is where Linux has never really been before - Linux as a consumer product.”

However Dell has refused to make any comment on the collaboration but has said that the company is happy with the response towards its Linux PCs launched earlier.

Seems very soon Linux operating system is going to give a tough fight to Windows of Microsoft.

Friday, July 27, 2007

The article titled Programming Web Services using Apache Axis shows how Axis Framework has simplified the creation of Web Services. It will start with the definition of Web Services and its related terminologies like SOAP and WSDL. Following that the ease with which Web Services are published are explained. The later section explores about the various tools available in the Axis distribution like the Tcp Monitor, Soap Monitor, Mapping between Java and WSDL. Finally the article ends up by giving a Sample Web Service Application deployed in Axis. read full article

This article will guide you in creating Eclipse Plugins using the Eclipse Plugin Development Environment (PDE). Because the Plugin Development Architecture is vast, this article will only provide brief information about the various components that fits into the PDE. It starts off in creating a Simple Plugin and they will try to explain the various pieces involved in the Plugin Development. More specifically this article will show how to create a View based Plugin, an Action based Plugin and a Preference-based Plugin. read full article

Saturday, July 21, 2007

The JavaFX Canvas supports a 2D vector graphics scene-graph model with a declarative API similar to Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Using this API we can declaratively create visual effects that combine Swing components together with 2D graphics. Any object in the canvas including Swing components can be translated, rotated, scaled, skewed blurred, reflected, shadowed etc... read full article

Action classes will be defined to handle requests. Actions exists between the Model and View of an application. This article will cover all of the standard actions and the helper methods of the Action class. read full article

The two-year deal is one of the biggest contracts for Ericsson. Under the contract, Ericsson will design, plan, deploy and manage Bharti's GSM network across 15 circles and its pre-paid platform across 23 circles in the country.

In addition, Ericsson will also deliver pan-India integrated device management solutions, enabling usage of advanced data services by all mobile customers of Bharti across retail and enterprise segments.

"This contract is an important part of realising Bharti's vision of a converged network and of expanding coverage in rural India to launch innovative voice and data services for Indian consumers," Ericsson India Managing Director Mats Granryd told reporters here.

"We are honoured that Bharti has chosen to partner with us in this grand venture that underpins our strategy of providing communication for all through sustainable and innovative solution," he added.

Scott Cleland, an analyst at the Washington, D.C. based telecom research group Prescursor has published a 35 page paper “Googleopoly: the Google-DoubleClick Anti-Competitive Case”. The paper argues that the US Federal Trade Commission will block Google’s $3.5 billion acquisition of DoubleClick on the basis that it will allow “Google to dominate online advertising and dramatically increase the opportunity for market collusion and price manipulation in the market for consumer click data, ad-performance tools, ad-brokering and ad-exchanges.”

Those interested can read the full report here. The stand out portion of Cleland’s report is how he describes Google dominance of the online advertising market post acquisition:

To equal Google-DoubleClick’s level of market concentration in the intermediary online advertising market, one single financial services company would have to own:

* The top 15 Wall Street banks/asset managers; * ~60% of the hedge fund and private equity industries; * The New York and London Stock Exchanges; * The two leading providers of financial analytical tools: Bloomberg and Factset; * Two of the three national providers of credit profiles: Experian and Equifax; and * ~60% of the Federal Reserve’s and U.S. Census Bureau’s raw market and consumer data. More>>

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

It seems the Web 2.0 concept is building up a lot of steam. So I think this is a good time to talk about another transition I’ve been thinking about recently: Mobile 2.0.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that what the blogosphere doesn’t need right now is Yet Another Pointless Meme (YAPM?). But the phrase Mobile 2.0 really seems to capture what this trend is about - the convergence of mobile devices and web services creating an entirely new dynamic. Once the web is truly a platform (although some would argue that it will never reach this stage), our mobiles won’t need to run applications or store massive amounts of data. The vast majority of these applications will exist on the network, with our data spread across the wide array of loosely coupled web services we use everyday. I expect you already upload your photos to Flickr, keep track of your links on del.icio.us or store and share your videos with YouTube, but I see this trend continuing to a point at which most of our data is in the cloud, and only a tiny fraction of it is stored locally. To some followers of Web 2.0, this evolution seems blatantly obvious, but I think we’ve yet to explore the true ramifications of the mobile web.

One likely scenario is the emergence of location-based advertising. It seems that Google, with its movement towards local search, its mapping expertise and its successful contextual ad system, is well-positioned to take advantage of the new dynamic. This MobHappy post gives us a flavour of what’s to come:

Your phone has…become your primary means of accessing the internet, again via Google Net, obviously. Your phone is a thin client, with most storage and processing done on the web. Most people don’t have even a PC anymore. If they want to do work that involves a keyboard and a bigger screen, they just pop their phone into the nearest docking station and away they go. With the added advantage that the phone has ensured that the screen layout, favourite apps, bookmarks and files are all available exactly as you’d want them…

So suddenly, true location based marketing becomes a reality, no longer a question like “when the tech is available” or “providing you’re in line of sight” or “if it’s accurate enough”.

The idea of the “docking station”, with a bigger screen and a full-sized keyboard, is a popular image of our mobile future. When we no longer need to be mobile (at work and at home, for example), we plug our phone into the dock and enjoy all the benefits of a fully-fledged PC. I’ve posted about this concept here and here. And Philip Greenspun has looked into how the docking station might work in practice:

A mobile phone has substantially all of the computing capabilities desired by a large fraction of the public. Why then would someone want to go to the trouble of installing and maintaining a personal computer (PC)? The PC has a larger keyboard and screen, a larger storage capacity, can play more sophisticated games, and has a faster communications capability.

This is a plan for building an appliance into which a mobile phone plugs and that extends the phone’s capabilities without requiring the consumer to become a system administrator or be aware that he or she owns more than a phone. In the rest of this document we will call the new device “The Appliance”…

It’s also interesting to imagine how content will evolve to fit the mobile platform. We’ve already seen content broken down into smaller chunks to cope with our busy lifestyles and short attention spans, but once we’re faced with digesting content on the go (perhaps on a tiny screen), that content will no doubt have to be even more concise. In essence, we’ll need better filtering to create shorter, more relevant snippets of content. But how will we create this content? Moblogs and cameraphone snaps seem to be gaining adoption, but mobile video is on the way, too. And if services like Scoopt and SpyMedia are anything to go by, then the content creators of Mobile 2.0 can expect to get paid for their efforts.

There is much more to be said about Mobile 2.0 - its impact on social networking, web design and payment systems will also be interesting areas to explore. But I’ll leave all that for another post. And before you start pulling these theories to pieces, let’s remember that Mobile 2.0 is just a hypothesis. I also accept that Mobile 2.0 isn’t even the correct term here - perhaps I’m really talking about Web 3.0, or simply the mobile internet. But let’s keep an eye on how these trends develop over the next few years - you never know, we might be on to something!

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google works on a search engine for mobile media content that will include ringtones and games.

"With the new system, users would search for a piece of content -- such as ringtones -- and would get back a list of companies that provide it, with links letting them easily purchase the material. (...) The company has been working for months with content providers -- including large entertainment companies and smaller mobile media aggregators -- to index their material and make it available via mobile search. (...) The Internet company has considered including a social-networking component that would let users of Google's Gmail email service exchange content, one person familiar with the initiative said. Google declined to comment."

Google has launched mobile versions for most of its services, including search, Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube and it's now testing AdSense for mobile content. But a search engine for ringtones and games could jeopardize Google's partnerships with many carriers that want to keep the customers inside their "walled gardens". There aren't many good services in this space (Mogmo comes to my mind), so Google's search engine will actually fill a void. Until some carriers decide to block it.

Global warming isn’t opinion. It’s a scientific reality. And the science tells us that human activity has made enormous impacts to our planet that affect our well-being and even our survival as a species.

The world’s leading science journals report that glaciers are melting ten times faster than previously thought, that atmospheric greenhouse gases have reached levels not seen for millions of years, and that species are vanishing as a result of climate change. They also report of extreme weather events, long-term droughts, and rising sea levels.

Fortunately, the science also tells us how we can begin to make significant repairs to try and reverse those impacts, but only through immediate action. That’s why we urge you to join us. The Stop Global Warming Virtual March is virtual but its purpose is real. By spreading the word and sharing this with others, our collective power will force governments, corporations, and politicians everywhere to pay attention.

What is Global Warming?

The Earth as an ecosystem is changing, attributable in great part to the effects of globalization and man. More carbon dioxide is now in the atmosphere than has been in the past 650,000 years. This carbon stays in the atmosphere, acts like a warm blanket, and holds in the heat — hence the name ‘global warming.’

The reason we exist on this planet is because the earth naturally traps just enough heat in the atmosphere to keep the temperature within a very narrow range - this creates the conditions that give us breathable air, clean water, and the weather we depend on to survive. Human beings have begun to tip that balance. We've overloaded the atmosphere with heat-trapping gasses from our cars and factories and power plants. If we don't start fixing the problem now, we’re in for devastating changes to our environment. We will experience extreme temperatures, rises in sea levels, and storms of unimaginable destructive fury. Recently, alarming events that are consistent with scientific predictions about the effects of climate change have become more and more commonplace.Read from Wiki

Shankar is going to get a red carpet reception, when he comes back to Chennai tomorrow (Tuesday July 3), after a month long sojourn abroad. Three weeks after its release, his Sivaji continues to rock, and superstar Rajnikant has given him full credit for it, by saying- "Shankar is the creator of the film and he has worked hard for it".

Now, what next is the question people in the industry are asking? According to sources close to him, Shankar will be totally concentrating on the films being made under his banner 'S'pictures for the next three months. He will be giving some creative inputs to his in-house directors Balaji Sakthivel, and Simbudevan who are immersed in the making of their films for the company.

Meanwhile the grapevine is abuzz with rumours that Shankar is finally starting work on his ambitious pet project Robo, a futuristic science fiction thriller set in the year 3050 of Chennai. The entire shoot of the film can happen only on sets, and also involves a lot of CG work, to give the futuristic look to the film. And that means millions of dollars, and a producer willing to blow up money, and a bigger market to exploit the film.

Actually Shankar has a commitment with Telugu financier and producer Tirupati Prasad to make a film for him. But the latest we hear is that a major Bollywood production house has roped in Prasad as Executive producer, and together they are planning to make the Shankar film in Hindi for a global audience. The production house has also the "dates" of Hrithik Roshan, who is keen to do a film with Shankar.

Though Shankar had initially talked about doing the project with Kamal Hassan in Tamil, he realizes that for such a big project you need a Bollywood hero for the global audiences. Imagine Hrithik, Hindi cinema's best action hero ( Krissh,Dhoom-2), A.R Rahman the only Indian musician with an international following and Shankar. The combination will rock!

And the latest on Robo is that a Hollywood studio, who is already making a film in Hindi, has shown an interest in the project. They want to be co-opted as presenters of the film, are willing to partly fund the project, which will definitely cost upward of Rs 100 crore. Now the ball is in Shankar's court. He will have to take a call in the next few weeks.

Monday, July 16, 2007

According to Apple Insider, just a year ago Apple's share of the computer market was close to 2%. Now MacWorld and CNet are reporting that - according to NDP research - Apple's Desktops have crossed 10% and the MacBooks now closing on 15% of the laptop market. This puts MacBooks in 4th place behind HP, Toshiba and Gateway. The figures are likely to increase in the 3rd quarter, which is traditionally strong for Apple, because of the back-to-school sales.

The above stats are backed up by my own experiences. When I walked into the BestBuy store recently, something was very different. It took me a second to realize that among the usual scenery, I was also looking at a big section featuring Macs. So Apple is back with a vengeance and has re-ignited the PC war. Despite dropping the word computer from its name, Apple still desperately wants to win the PC market.

But why? Surely Steve Job's spite and ego play a role, but more importantly, desktops and laptops still hold the lion's share of profitability in the computing industry. The computer is becoming, if it has not already become, the personal media center. Laptops are literally everywhere and it is likely to remain the same way for at least a decade. So Apple is fighting as hard as it can to fix its mistake of the past - letting Redmond win the personal computing market.More>>

With the advent of internet, there has been constant paradigm change from time and again. There are many scripting web languages which came and showed their impact now and then. But the feature I am going to talk about will give a close look to internet as a close friend. In this article, read full article

PHP, an acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, is a scripting language that is used for creating dynamic and interactive web pages. PHP is widely used and can be freely downloaded from http://www.php.net/downloads.php read full article

PHP, an acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, is a general purpose scripting language that is used to create dynamic web pages. Recently, a newer version of PHP was released and it is popularly known as PHP 5. The top seven features with PHP 5 are: read full article

PHP, an acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, is a scripting language that is used for creating dynamic and interactive web pages. PHP is widely used and can be freely downloaded from http://www.php.net/downloads.php. read full article

4 years ago today, 15 July 2003, AOL Time Warner disbanded Netscape Communications Corporation - the company that sparked the Dot Com Internet boom in the mid-90's with its 1995 IPO. Also 4 years ago today, The Mozilla Foundation was established. mozillaZine reported at the time:

"It has been learned through public and private sources that AOL has cut or will cut the remaining team working on Mozilla in a mass firing and are dismantling what was left of Netscape (they've even pulled the logos off the buildings). Some will remain working on Mozilla during the transition, and will move to other jobs within AOL.

The news isn't all doom and gloom, folks. I've been informed that the number of volunteer Mozilla hackers started eclipsing the number of Netscape hackers last month, and that a number of folks have already been snatched up by other organizations. ".More>>

Sunday, July 15, 2007

US-based Internet giants such as Google and Yahoo are eyeing Rediff.com India Ltd, which runs one of India's most popular consumer Internet portals, for a possible acquisition. Investment banking sources told Hindustan Times that the management of Nasdaq-listed Rediff was in talks with the global companies for a negotiated takeover deal.

Rediff, Google and Yahoo officials could not be immediately reached for their comments. Talk of the deal is emerging in the context of a general worldwide rebound in the Internet business, and India emerging as a hot story in the global economy with strong growth in both telephone penetration and the Internet in urban areas.

Leading US-based investment journal Barrons reported this month that Rediff is seeing speculation that it could be a takeover target. Rediff’s stock has witnessed a sharp jump in share price and volume on Nasdaq over the past week, when it also launched a Website to help consumers upload voice, video and photographic content for free.

The company's stock moved up to $25.41 per share on July 13 from $17.94 on July 5 and. The trading volume has increased to more than a million shares from an average of 50,000 share a day. In fact, on July 12, Rediff shares closed at $26.46 and more than 3.3 million shares traded hands. The company has a current market capitalisation of $738 million.

The sources said if the deal comes through, the valuation may be close to a billion US dollars.

The Barrons report quoted Ashish Thadani, an analyst at Gilford Securities, as saying that Rediff could fetch more than $ 25 a share in a sale and could see other suitors besides Yahoo and Google

Other suitors could possibly include AOL (America On Line), a division of Time Warner, which has a strong presence in offshore services from India, but is not a significant player in the market. Microsoft's MSN portal is also keenly stepping up its presence in the Indian market.

Rediff.com India, an online provider of news, information, communication, entertainment and shopping services, reported a net income of $2 million for the fourth quarter or $6.89 per ADS, compared with $0.53 million or $1.96 per ADS in the same quarter of the previous year.

The company's revenues increased 66 per cent to $8.48 million from $5.11 million in the same quarter of last year. India Online revenues, which include advertising and fee-based revenues, jumped 76 per cent to $6.30 million from $3.57 million in the year-ago quarter, while US Publishing revenues were $2.18 million, up 42 per cent from $1.54 million a year earlier.

Google (GOOG) has begun testing text ads on cell phones, offering publishers a way to make money off of their mobile sites, the company confirmed to The Utility Belt moments ago.

What is Ads for mobile?Well it kind of does what it says on the tin, Ads for mobile allows publishers to place ads contextual advertising on website designed for mobile (cell) phones to monetise that traffic.

Director Shankar returns to Chennai today after a month long break abroad. With Sivaji creating box office history and the Superstar giving him the entire credit for the film's success, there is no stopping this talented director.

So what will Shankar create next? Well, as of now he plans to completely concentrate on the films being made under his banner 'S' Pictures. He will also be giving creative inputs to his in-house directors Balaji Sakthivel, and Simbudevan, who are busy making films for his production house.

But rumours are buzzing that Shankar is all set to start work on his ambitious project Robo, a science fiction movie set in Chennai in 3050. The movie will be shot completely on sets as it is a futuristic film and will involve a lot of computer graphics.

It is also heard that a major Bollywood production house, with whom Shankar has a commitment to make a film, has roped in Telugu financier and producer Tirupati Prasad as executive producer. Together they are planning to make the Shankar film in Hindi for a global audience. It is rumoured that the production house has obtained dates from Hrithik Roshan, who is very eager to do a film with Shankar.

Shankar had previously planned to make the film with Kamal Haasan in Tamil. But for a global audience, a Bollywood hero would ensure greater appeal.

It is also heard that a Hollywood studio has also shown interest in the film and wants to be the presenter of the film.

Whether this exciting combination will come together....well, we have to wait and watch.

Universal Pictures and Google have joined to promote the upcoming summer film The Bourne Ultimatum and at the same time tout several of Google's products to moviegoers.

"The Ultimate Search for Bourne With Google," which launches on Monday, is an interactive game that uses several Google products, including search, maps, images, translation and YouTube, to let players adopt the persona of Jason Bourne, the film's hero. Players are given challenges each week at a dedicated Google site, www.google.com/bourne.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Lajjo is a forthcoming film to be directed by Mani Ratnam. Produced by Ratnam and Bobby Bedi, the film's score and soundtrack will be composed by A. R. Rahman with lyrics by Gulzar. The film is expected to release in 2008. The story is an adaptation from the story Lajjo by Ismat Chugtai.More>>

Google is coming out with a new tag called “unavailable_after” which will allow people to tell Google when a particular page will no longer be available for crawling. For instance, if you have a special offer on your site that expires on a particular date, you might want to use the unavailable_after tag to let Google know when to stop indexing it. Or perhaps you write articles that are free for a particular amount of time, but then get moved to a paid-subscription area of your site. Unavailable_after is the tag for you! Pretty neat stuff! More>>

Friday, July 13, 2007

This is a very interesting presentation (see below) on the technologies used to make Digg, the challenges faced along the way and how they overcame it. I would recommend it to any Web 2.0 startup architects.In short Digg uses multiple MySQL slaves with a single master, multiple load balanced PHP servers which connects to random MySQL slave (for load balancing obviously). They also use Memcached with multiple specialized pools like a separate pool for search.

Digg is the poster boy of PHP driven high volume sites.

It wasn’t clear from the slides whether they actually used sharding (breaking your database into small segment say based on data ranges, tables etc.) in any form. Looking at their architecture I don’t think they can easily use sharding in future too. Can you guess why?

This book is written to address the questions most people ask - From "What were you thinking when you invented it?" through "So what do you think of it now?" to "Where is this all going to take us?", this is the story.

It is not a technical book. (If you want the technical details, check out the W3C web site!). It does mention a little about how technologies you may have heard of - like XML - fit in to the past, present and future, but only in the course of charting the course for the Web from the initial dream - still largely unfulfilled - to the next technical and social revolution.

Now it has been out for a while, it seems different people like different bits.

According to Webster's Online Dictionary semantic means "the relationships between symbols and what they represent." Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web in 1989 at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, has used the term to christen the Internet of the future.The Semantic Web is a set of technologies he's developing right now as director of the World Wide Web Consortium, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Born in London in 1955, Berners-Lee was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004. In this exclusive interview, he explains his vision of the future Semantic Web, which he says will be much more powerful than anything we have seen before.More>>

Thursday, July 12, 2007

The initial release of the iPod wasn’t great. A so-so product that only worked with Macs and required users to spend their lives ripping CDs. But its long-term effect were huge: a massive 10% (and rapidly growing) chunk of music is now sold digitally to the iPod and its competitors. So what will the iPhone’s long-term effect on the cell phone industry be?

Accelerate 3G adoption in the USThe iPhone is a 2G device - ie, it’s slow. This was the right decision: the US has paltry 3G coverage. In most major cities, however, free 802.11b wireless networks are ubiquitous. People with devices like the iPhone and Nokia’s N95 (which also has a desktop-quality web browser) can get a taste of viewing real web on their phones content at reasonable speed over 802.11b wireless networks in cafes and bookstores. The massive speed drop users will get attempting to view a real website over an EDGE network will raise consumer demand for 3G and better networks from carriers.

They’ll also want a 3G iPhone like their friends in Australia have. Late next year Apple intends to release the iPhone in Australia, where 2G networks are being shut down, 3G or 3.5G HSDPA is everywhere, and free 802.11b wireless is rare. By the time that happens, the iPhone will be 3G - not only because Apple wants it to be, but because it has no other choice.More>>

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Google's July 9 acquisition of Postini is another clear sign that the search giant is staking a claim in the on-demand enterprise applications market and ratcheting up the heat in the already sizzling software as a service sector, especially against Microsoft.

With Postini, which began as an e-mail filtering company and evolved into compliance technology that enforces a company's communications policies, Google can now address the perception that its nascent portfolio of e-mail and messaging applications aren't quite ready for prime time. More>>

Saturday, July 07, 2007

As President APJ Abdul Kalam prepares to demit office, his scientist friends have come together to start a museum that showcases his contribution to India’s space development — and also has a silhouette of his famous mane as its logo.

The Mission of Life Museum in the capital’s cantonment area is the brainchild of Kalam’s friend and Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd, A Sivathanu Pillai.

Through Kalam’s achievements, the museum also highlights the country’s milestones in rocketry, space and missile technology using 3-D holography and even a simulated nuclear explosion.

As Pillai sees it, there could be no better tribute for India’s first scientist president, who was the founder of BrahMos, an India-Russia joint venture for making the supersonic cruise missiles.

“We have reached a stage when the BrahMos missiles have been inducted into the Indian Navy and the Army, so we decided to exhibit the important milestones in our space, nuclear and missile technology (which are closely linked to Kalam),” Pillai said. “It is designed in such a way that the children, who come out of it after visiting it, should have a vision about their life.”

The timing is right too. The museum opens on July 15 exclusively for schoolchildren during weekends, just four days before the new president is elected.

“It has come out as a fantastic museum,” Pillai, who has collected all the medals, honours, certificates and awards Kalam had received, said.

The museum was inaugurated by Kalam himself last month. He has donated his original Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan awards, his 27 doctorates apart from numerous other awards to it. Several dozen mementos and gifts Kalam received during his presidency and earlier are also featured. Besides, the president’s personal ‘Rudraveena’ and Mahatma Gandhi’s marksheet, which was gifted to him by the father of nation’s old school in Gujarat, are there too.